Читать книгу Dick Rodney; or, The Adventures of an Eton Boy онлайн

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"And where am I now?" I inquired.

"Pretty far out upon the open sea, my lad," replied the captain with a smile, as he threw the end of his cheroot into the empty grate.

"The open sea—still the open sea!" I reiterated with dismay, which I cared not to conceal.

"Yes; we saw the last glimpse of the rugged Start on the day before yesterday, and this morning, just an hour before picking you up, we bade good-by to old England, for the Lizard Light was bearing—you had the dead watch, Hislop; how did it bear?"

"About twelve miles off, on the weather quarter."

"How shall I return home?"

They both laughed as I despairingly made this inquiry.

"By the way you left it, I suppose; that is by water," said Captain Weston.

"You spoke of the Start; what is that?"

"A cape of the Channel, on the south-east coast of Devonshire, about nine miles to the southward of Dartmouth," he replied, while casting a casual glance at a chart which lay on the table.

I had thus, before being rescued so providentially, drifted more than a hundred miles from Erlesmere, and it was marvellous that the schooner had floated so far unseen.